Hi there. We’re the Active Minds “Send Silence Packing” Fall 2011 Road Trip staff, Brandon Doman and Kathryn Cooper. We were hired by the Active Minds national office to take the program on the road, and we couldn’t be more happy to do so. We’ve set up this blog so that everyone can be a part of the tour, anywhere and anytime.

About Brandon

I’ve spent most of my life, so far, in “America’s High-Five,” also known as Michigan. In June of 2009 I received my degree in English from Central Michigan University. I always knew the kind of things I liked—people, ideas, connections, expression, details, etc, but I never really knew how to bring them all together. These led me to things like small personal projects, my major, lofty dreams, all of that ‘growing up’ stuff. Things really started coming together once I graduated. With the whole world ahead of me, I decided to use my new freedom, experience, and curiosity to start my biggest, most committed personal project ever. In late June 2009, I began the Don’t Talk to Strangers projects. While sitting on a sunny sidewalk in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I began, as I always had, wondering about the lives of the people passing by.  I decided to try to capture a glimpse of these stories of the strangers we pass every day by asking strangers to write a journal entry in my notebook. Over the next eight months the project snowballed in a way that I couldn’t have ever imagined, and eventually led me to meeting the wonderful staff at Active Minds. Here’s to adventure.

About Kathryn

I’m a New York City-based creative freelancer who loves having her hands on multiple projects at once. After graduating from Ithaca College in 2006 with dual degrees in psychology and music performance, I wasn’t quite sure about my next step. That’s when I jumped on the freelancing bandwagon and started picking up writing, photography, and creative brainstorming jobs in the New York City area. Soon I was working for several television networks, teaching healthy cooking classes to inner-city kids, and volunteering on building projects, campaigns, community gardens, and more. My interest in community building led me to volunteer in Asia, and upon returning to the U.S., I knew I wanted to make traveling, meeting people, learning, and doing multimedia projects a huge part of my life. Working with Active Minds on the Send Silence Packing tour will not only allow me to do all this, but also give me the opportunity to use my psychology degree and mental health experience to spread a positive message. I greatly look forward to exploring California (I was born there) and working with the college generation to make a difference!